Practice Quilt

So yesterday I played around with free-motion quilting the Hi-Ho Cherry-O mini quilt I made for the Craftster.org quilt challenge. Actually, I practiced a couple of different things: #1. free-motion quilting, #2. walking foot quilting and #3. sewing on the binding.

It's too hard to see in the picture, but I did pretty good! Besides stippling, I also tried the "banana" and "headband" patterns out of Diane Gaudynski book (Quilt Saavy: Gaudynski's Guide to Machine Quilting). I did better at random stippling, though I got a couple of my bananas to actually look like bananas.

Anyway, I did the sky part first, and by the time I got down to the grass, I was able to calibrate my hands with the machine speed, and I got some nice, evenly-spaced stitches. In the sky part, the stitches are way too close together.

Next, I practiced sewing on the binding. I used Sharon Schamber's glue technique (check out her "Binding the Angel" videos on You Tube). Well... I found out I LOVE that technique. It's a little time consuming, but the effort is well worth the results. And, I had to remind myself that pinning is also time consuming so I'd rather glue than pin! I also found out that I really need to find one of those tips she puts on the glue bottle. Her website says you can find them at any craft store, but I doubt it around here.

Anyway, you're NOT gluing on the binding to hold forever, you're simply using the glue (instead of pins) to hold the binding to the quilt until you sew it down. You put a little bead of glue down and then heat set it. Oh, yeah, and it HAS to be Elmer's glue. First, that glue washes out and second, she says it's strictly a starch product so it heat sets nicely.

AND... I also gleaned another great tip from her videos: to use heavy starch on the reverse side of the binding so when it's folded in half, it sticks together and you don't have to fight with flimsy, loose binding. What a great idea, and it worked beautifully!

After the binding is glued down, you sew it on to the front as you would if it was pinned. Next, you IRON IT up (duh! another great tip--why didn't I think of that?) and then flip it over to the back side. Once again, you glue it down and heat set it. At this point, you can handsew it (she suggests a ladder stitch--one stitch in the binding; one stitch in the quilt) or sew the binding on.

So... since I'm so intrigued by sewing on the binding, I thought I'd attempt that. I dug out my stitch-in-the-ditch foot and fired it up! It worked BEAUTIFULLY! Wow! I swore I'd never sew on another binding after I made such a complete mess out of that cute little ClothWorks quilt I made. However, this foot makes sewing on the binding a breeze!

Now... I cut my biding at 2.75 inches because I wanted to make sure the stitches would "catch" on the backside. Well, they caught with no problems because that's TOO BIG! That size leaves an awfully big over-hang that I don't like at all. I'll try another practice quilt with 2.5" and see if that leaves enough room.

And, finally, the only part I really had trouble with yesterday was joining the ends of the binding, and I had to try a good 10-15 attempts (no joking) before I finally figured it out. I have notes from my quilt class, but I can't understand the drawing. So, I made notes on my notes, and I hope I can decipher them the next time I need them!